Silvertounge
by Thousandsmiles
Summary: Robots attack Manhattan and as usual the Avengers which now includes Loki (and minuses Thor) have to deal with it. However there is something different about this attack and it may be the beginning of something much bigger than they expected. AU obviously. No slash.
1. Chapter 1

_**Okay so this is my first Avengers fic. And I confess it that has a lot of bits inspired from other great fics thrown it here and there. And well it's obviously AU. It was only supposed to be a oneshot but if anyone wants me to continue I'll try to. Hope you all like it.**_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers.**_

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The shrill buzzing interrupted Tony from his very delicate calibration.

"Argh! Jarvis! What is that?!"

"Miss Potts requested that I use a shrill alarm whenever you were required for lunch sir."

Tony scowled. "I don't need to eat right now. I have to finish this. Turn it off."

"I am unable to do so, sir," Jarvis said apologetically.

"Why the hell not?!"

"Miss Potts recruited Mr. Silvertounge to her cause sir. He has compromised my systems for the moment. I believe the intrusion will not stop until you appear in the dining room sir."

Tony cursed violently in several languages and then put one hand over his ears and turned everything off with the other.

The alarm suddenly got louder. "Alright! Alright I'm coming!" Tony shouted at the ceiling and dashed for the elevator. He spent the ride in relative agony and burst out into the lounge/dining room.

"Loki, if you don't turn that off now…" he began. The alarms shut off.

Tony glared at the god of mischief who was curled up in an armchair innocently appearing to read a book.

Loki raised his head from the book and arched an eyebrow at him. Tony opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a voice.

"Tony!" said Steve coming into the room. "You're just in time."

Tony turned to see Steve enter with a tray of something balanced in one hand and a bowl balanced o the other. He brushed past him and set them on the central table.

"In time?!" said Tony, outraged, "Loki hijacked Jarvis and made him sound an alarm until I came down here!"

Tony heard an undignified snicker and turned to see Barton entering the room carrying another tray piled height with another unidentified something. The others, minus Bruce and Thor piled in behind him all carrying food which they set on the table.

"Clever," said Natasha to Loki.

The silvertounge merely smiled in that insufferable way of his and said, "Potts."

"Ahh," said everyone.

"Seriously," said Tony, "Is there no one voting for me?"

There was silence as everyone looked at him. "I….guess that's a no then. I don't know what's worse. Pepper conspiring with him to use Jarvis against me. Or that fact that Jarvis didn't tell me anything which makes you a co-conspirator Jarvis. Don't think I didn't figure it out."

"Nutrition is important sir," came Jarvis' voice not sounding the least bit sorry.

Tony threw up his arms in the air.

Natasha bit down a smile, Clint openly laughed and Steve grinned.

"I believe we all second that Jarvis," said Steve.

"Second what?" said Bruce walking into the dining room.

"Why did no one turn on an alarm for him?!" demanded Tony pointing at Bruce.

"Because he shows up for meals Stark," said Romanov starchy.

"Wait, what's going on?" asked Bruce, thoroughly confused.

"Pepper asked Jarvis to turn on an alarm whenever Tony needs to have lunch and also got Loki to magic it so that Tony can't make Jarvis turn it off," Barton explained snickering.

"Ahh, I see," said Bruce his eyes flickering to the curled up form on the armchair, once more in the guise of an innocent reading. His eyes held a healthy spark of humor. "That's rather ingenious actually."

"Wait. Sciencebro. Aren't you supposed to be on my side?!" said Tony looking betrayed.

"I mean I understand having to work and getting into a groove Tony, but I am also a doctor. I can't advocate bad heath."

"Really," said Tony, "I'm being stonewalled in my own Tower? By my guests?"

"No," said Natasha, "You're being looked after by Pepper and we're not arguing with her."

"You do not get to twist this situation around," Tony started only to be cut off by Steve.

"Tony, just eat. The faster you eat, the faster you get back to work."

Tony huffed and opened his mouth to refute only to be sternly commanded, "Eat!"

He shut his mouth and moved to the table muttering under his breath, "Fine, grandfather."

He dropped into a chair and the others settled around the table in their usual spots. Loki got from the armchair and slid smoothly into a seat at the other end of the table. Tony glared at him and gave him the 'I'm watching you sign."

"Don't think I've forgotten your part in this Silver."

The others saw their usually silent resident magician once more arch his eyebrow and smirk wickedly. Tony froze. "What did he do to me? Silver, what did you do to me?"

"Nothing Stark," said Natasha patiently, "he's just messing with you."

"I hope," Barton added."

Natasha glared at Clint and Steve and Bruce sighed.

"We are never going to eat at this rate," Bruce said mournfully.

Loki delicately snapped his fingers and a whole lot of things flew up from the bowls and landed neatly in everyone's plate.

Everyone froze staring at Tony's plate.

"Hey!" said Tony suddenly serious, "I serve myself okay? Nobody hands me my food magically or otherwise and that includes you Reindeer Games."

Loki very aloofly stuck the edge of his tongue out at Tony, the silver glinting in the sunlight. The gesture coming from anyone else would be cause to throw them out especially if it was from someone who knew Tony's paranoia of being handed things. But seeing the metallic mesh tongue glinting between Loki's teeth, his anger diminished knowing that it was Loki's own screwed up way of apologizing and saying he cared, as well as a request for trust. Tony took a deep breath and sighed it out.

"Just this once Silver," he said and the tension that was building up in the room vanished. Everyone relaxed and began to dig in. Tony was about to do the same when he actually looked at what was on the plate.

"Um," he said, "anyone want to tell me what exactly is this?"

Before they could reply though Jarvis interrupted them. "Sir, Director Fury is on the line. He says it is urgent."

There was a universal groan from everyone minus Loki and Steve of course. Bruce threw down his napkin in despair.

Tony sighed. "Put him on screen Jarvis."

Turned out it was a bunch of robots running though the city randomly destroying things. No idea who they came from or where but they were too powerful for shield's usual operatives to take down. The avengers were needed. The avengers reluctantly abandoned their meal and stood up ready to dash off to suit up.

Loki stood and said "I'll see you there. Try not to come when everything's over." The others nodded and went off for their various weapons. Bruce took the elevator downstairs.

Alone in the room. Loki's armor flicked into sight, the black and dark green solidifying out of the golden light surrounding him. He subtly changed his features, softening the angles and shifting them slightly and his eyes lightened into a clear gray while his hair changed to a very dark brown; the overall effect bringing him to look like who the world knew as the Silvertounge and then he opened a portal and walked into the battle zone.

He ducked the first laser blast purely on instinct. He saw the second one coming and calmly got out of the way. He took a moment to look around and assess the situation. There were perhaps twenty of the robots. They were fast despite their clunky appearance and they shot lasers that could disintegrate people. The battle zone was perhaps five city blocks in diameter and widening fast. There were civilians in the line of fire and shield operatives who were trying to slow down the robots.

"Director," he said into his comm., "tell your people to change focus and get the civilians out of the line of fire. We'll handle the metal contraptions."

There was a huff and then Loki heard the orders being given. He didn't wait though. He stepped out of his cover spot and shot a bolt of magic at the nearest robot. It blew up. He ducked another laser blast and threw one of his daggers at the bot that shot at him. It landed squarely in the one red eye and Loki with a vicious grin said three short words. A ripple shot out from the dagger and the bot shattered. He called the daggers back to his hand and ran, jumped and took of the head of another of the robots that was attempting to shoot one of his cones. The blast from it exploding blew into the air. He twisted and landed on his feet and his mouth guard and helm snapped into place around his head.

He heard screams and turned to see a robot about to bring down the roof of a diner on a group of people inside. He spoke rapidly and threw the shield. It settled around them seconds before the roof came down. He was about to step through to space to get to the bot when the Hulk slammed into it and pulverized it. Iron Man's repulses sounded a few seconds after.

"Situation Silver," came Cap's voice.

"The… robots are numbering 15 now if I'm not mistaken. They are capable of shooting lasers blast that can cause disintegration. There are a group of civilians under a pile of rubble in the diner on the street I am in. I have a shield around them. There are others still in the line of fire but the shield operatives have gotten a lot out. The perimeter of damage is widening however. These…robot are fast."

"Alright," said Cap. "Stark take the perimeter. Stop it from widening. Silver get those people out from under the rubble but before you do that can you shield Widow, Hawkeye and I?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Good, do it."

"Stay still," he said and then concentrated, drew on his magic and felt for his comrades and settled it over them. "There," he said.

"Good, shield the civilians as you can. Barton take a roof and give us a view. Widow with me," Cap said and they all dashed off to do their respective parts.

Loki expanded the shield he had over the people until it shook off the rubble and then broke it. The people clambered out thankfully and he directed them off the streets. He took note of the building they went in and threw a shield over it.

Meanwhile Tony had just finished blast another robot to oblivion. "Okay either Silver can't count or there are waay more than fifteen of these things."

"Sensors indicate that there are more approaching sir," said Jarvis.

"Great. Guys there are more of these things rolling up from somewhere."

"We kind of figured that out on our own," said Natasha.

"I can't see where they're coming from," said Hawkeye, then almost in after thought, "Duck Stark."

Tony ducked a jumping robot. Hulk smashed it when it landed.

A blast of green funneled down a street, taking four of the robots with them.

"Cap needs back up!" called Natasha.

"On it," called Tony and dived over to where Cap was fighting five of the robots.

Together they quickly destroyed the bots.

"Where are they coming from?" asked Natasha.

"From the civilians," said the Silvertounge.

"What?" said Cap.

"Some of your precious civilians aren't civilians," aid Loki coolly.

"Shit, he's right Captain," came Hawkeye's voice a moment later. "These things are masquerading as humans until more is needed."

"What? But that doesn't make sense. If they're among the civilians why not just hurt them?"

"Because their goal isn't to hut them," said Loki smoothly.

"Then what is, Silver?!" said Tony exasperatedly.

"The obvious notion would be that they are distracting us."

"Distracting us from what?" asked Natasha.

"Son of a bitch," said Tony, "the Tower."

He stopped, banked and instantly headed back to the tower. He didn't get far. A concussion wave blasted through the city.

When Tony regained consciousness he found himself stuck precariously in the side of a skyscraper.

There was a tiny voice in his ear going, "Report, report," over and over again. He groaned."Hello?"

"Stark!" It was Steve. "Where are you?"

"Oh, uh, just chilling in the side of this skyscraper. How are you Captain?"

"Alive," said Steve briskly. Just then another voice broke in.

"Widow, reporting."

"Hawkeye ,reporting,"

Neither of them sounded much better than Tony.

There was a pause while they waited for another voice to come after. There was none.

"Silver?" called Cap."Silver, report."

Pain. Like the beating the Hulk had given him during the New York invasion only a thousand times worse. He was barely keeping his thoughts in order. He tried to dig for his magic but couldn't concentrate enough. The magic that automatically came to him when he was hurt was a faint stream. He must have used up far more than he realized. He dug again for his magic but could barely feel it. He couldn't even feel the magic he usually wore around him and could tap into if he ever needed extra energy. Wait. What? There was no magic wrapping around him. No. No. NO. NO.

He tried to concentrate again but his ears were literally ringing, the world was swaying before his eyes and there were a multitude of injuries that his magic was automatically streaming into instead of listening to his call. He tried to speak. Coughed up blood that congealed inside his mouth guard. He twisted his face, shakily raised his arms and pried his mouth guard open. He tried to speak again and managed a croak. Finally, after multiple tries he spat out, "Watcher. Tower. No magic." And hoped his comm. wasn't broken.

There was a shuddering of static suddenly in their comms. and then a series of broken up words.

"Silver?" called Cap. There was no answer. "Anyone heard what that was?"

"Anyone else heard the words "No magic" there?" Tony replied. "Jarvis can you unscramble that?" There was a pause. "Jarvis?" There was no reply.

"I've lost Jarvis," Tony reported, sounding not a little frantic, "And I don't know why because my display is working perfectly fine."

"Watcher," Hawkeye said. "The first word was 'watcher'." There was a pause and then everyone said "Oh shit!" including Steve.

"Silver where are you?" Steve shouted, "Hawkeye do you see the Hulk?"

"Yes. He just popped out of a pile of rubble. I'm seeing other survivors as well."

"Survivors?" gasped Natasha she attempted to wiggle out from under a beam, "How are there survivors?"

"I don't know," Clint admitted. "Everything down there looks literally pulverized."

"Can you see Silver?"

"No," Hawkeye told Captain America.

"Alright. Just because his shields are down doesn't mean that he will see him right away. We've got some time." Cap rationalized.

"Um, I'm still not getting Jarvis back up. Legolas what's the status of the Tower?"

Clint twisted until he could see the tower. "It looks fine, Stark."

"Well obviously not, because there is no Jarvis," Tony said.

"Wait, I think the Hulk found Silver!" called Hawkeye. He gave directions to them.

"What happened to the robots?" asked Widow.

"They're down," Clint reported, "Whatever they did took them out as well."

Just then Fury's voice broke in demanding an explanation for what happened.

"When we know," Stark told him, "We'll tell you. What's the situation of Silver guys?"

"I am alive," said a scratchy voice, "But my well of power is severely drained. I cannot put up the shield I need to remain hidden from _him_. It is imperative I remain hidden. However I believe our contingency plan has been stone from the tower," he paused for a breath and then added carefully, "It is also most likely that Jarvis has been hurt in the attempt."

There was a breath of silence and then Tony said in a voice of pure, freakily calm fury, "What?"

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_**R&R please! I love reviews. They make me happy! **_


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks to all those who reviewed and followed! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers. **

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"Director," said Widow, "the initiative has to fall back to the tower. We believe it has been compromised and that the attack was a distraction. We need to ascertain that suspicion. There are still survivors who need aid."

"Fine. Keep me updated," Fury said, shortly.

As fast as they could, the avengers got to the tower, Tony arriving first. When the others arrived he was frantically tapping away on a keypad, mumbling to himself.

"Tony, what's the situation?" asked Cap.

"I can't find Jarvis. I can't even find a single piece of his programming. He's been wiped from my servers. All my servers. Along with the security footage for the last twenty minutes. And the shield vault has been broken into because the shield is missing. Am I missing anything? Oh, yes, the bomb that was rigged to blow that was left here as a thank you, that I diffused like five minutes ago." He took a deep breath after his rapid fire discourse.

There was silence for a moment while everyone took in Tony's too calm fury, before Natasha asked, "Do you have a back-up for Jarvis?"

"I did. I had a constant back up where Jarvis would send ever thing that happened to the backup drive, every hour. But even the backup drive is wiped clean. The back up in Malibu should still be fine though but Jarvis will be a week late, since I update that one weekly."

"So we basically have no idea who walked in here and got pass your super secret, and impenetrable vault to steal something we shouldn't even have in the first place. And left a bomb. And tried to kill Jarvis," stated Barton

"What I want to know is why?" said Cap.

"I agree," said Widow, "There is something else going on here."

"Too many plots," said Loki, wearily, from where he was resting on the couch.

"Exactly," nodded Natasha.

"If they wanted us dead and the shield, why not just come and take it when we were less ready? Those robots would have been much more difficult to defeat inside the tower," said Barton.

"Whoever it is wanted to hide their face," said Tony, "That's why the security footage was wiped and he killed Jarvis."

"That's one reason," said Cap, "But if he was going to kill us, why bother? He didn't even bother to kill the civilians when he could."

There was a moment of silence and then Loki sat up. "Me," he said.

"What?" the others swung their gazes to him.

He gave them a withering look mixed with pity, "How can you mortals stand being so dull is far beyond even me," he said with ample disgust still managing to ripple through his voice despite it being dry and scratchy. "The axis of this plan revolves around me. And the shield. Whoever came to the tower wanted the shield but it is for more than one reason. The first is obvious. He wants the use of it. The second though, is to stop us from using it for what it was created for. Namely me. To hide my presence on Midgard, something 'Our world Above' is still unaware of. Of course, normally I don't need the shield, my magic does the same function far more efficiently. So he has to get rid of my magic, at least for a time. Long enough for the watcher to see me and hence my cover, as you say it, is blown, as we will have no shield. He does this by the blast he created using the robots, which is something he couldn't do in the tower because it would have destroyed the shield, which he wants."

"Yeah, except that that blast, still couldn't harm the vault," Tony interjected.

"He couldn't know that," said Loki simply, "And you mistake the force of the blast. It was far more powerful than you believe, you misinformed wastrel. It would have to be, to deplete my well of power. Or ," and here he fixed his eyes on Tony sharply, "do you doubt the extent of my ability?"

"No one's doubting you Silver," said Cap. before Tony could reply, "But how powerful was it really?"

Loki narrowed his eyes at them for a few moments more and then said, "About as powerful as the bomb Stark flew through the portal to destroy the Chitauri."

There was a moment of startled silence and then Barton gave a low whistle and said in a voice of awed disbelief, "A nuke. That blast was initially as powerful as a nuke and you confined it to what it was?"

"I would not have been so drained if I did not have to save your petty civilians and your equally fragile mortal bodies," said Loki distastefully.

"Watch the tongue Silver," said Tony bitingly.

"Hey!" said Natasha.

"Watch yours," said Loki coolly, in reply.

"Hey!" said Natasha again, and this time they both looked up at her tone.

"Stop that," she said, "Stark I know you're angry but that's no reason to snap on your team mates. And Silver, I know you're tired and concerned, but no reason to spit out threats. Am I clear? Can you two play nice now?"

When either side showed no inclination to answer, Steve said, his voice hard, "Answer the lady!"

Both of them glared at each other and then said a grudging yes. There was a moment of tense silence afterwards which was broken by the Hulk suddenly shrinking down into Banner. Steve grasped his arm to steady him and Tony went to get a drink. Barton contacted Fury to update him on the status of the tower. Tony came back with two drinks and held out one to Loki. Loki eyed him and then with a sniff, took the glass and sipped from it. Steve escorted Bruce, who was wrapped in Loki's cape, to his floor so he could change. Barton finally got off from Fury and said, "Fury wants us to come in."

"Tell him to come to us," said Stark, "We don't want Long John Silver here, to be moving around a lot."

Barton relayed the request to Fury choosing to omit the reason for safety reasons. The stolen shield, being of course one of the most classified things ever, considering they weren't supposed to have it at all because Asgard would take it as an act of war as it was built to hide thing's from Heimdal's sight. Something Asgard would not take kindly to. And the shield was now in the hands of an enemy who had considerable resources and power. If there was a definition of messed up, Barton was pretty sure this was it.

Fury was going to be the definition of furious.

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